


smířit se

by bubbleteahime



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: F/M, Historical Accuracy, Historical Characters - Freeform, Historical Hetalia, Historical References, Politics, Post-Divorce, Recent History
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-23
Updated: 2017-12-23
Packaged: 2019-02-18 19:28:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13106961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bubbleteahime/pseuds/bubbleteahime
Summary: It's late 1993. Czechoslovakia has been dissolved for nearly a year. So, this is the aftermath of a divorce——or, Czechia runs into Slovakia in a bar by their newly established border.





	smířit se

**Author's Note:**

  * For [atomically](https://archiveofourown.org/users/atomically/gifts).



> surprise, toma! I'm your secret santa, hehe. maryland chrysler, I really hope I haven't butchered these two. Not sure how well I characterized them, but I gave it my best shot.

 

Late December in 1993 is an echo of lost things and reflection. The cold air moves like amber, preserving beauty that is long dead.

 

It is a coincidence that Czechia is near the border when Slovakia visits. She can feel his presence distinctly, an unfamiliar sense of intrusion that was not present during their union.

(Soon, it will be one year since the Velvet Divorce.)

She follows that instinctual sense to an off the road brewpub she recognizes with a pang. They've been here before. They found this bar on their way to their little _chata_ —they haven't settled who it belongs to—in the mountains.

The wooden door is heavy and coarse in her palm. The brewpub is not quite as established as some of her breweries of course, but it is solid and very much _there_ , like the sharp outline of his back against the bar.

For some reason, she hesitates.

It's not as she hasn't seen him over the year— actually, she has been seeing him a lot because there's so much business to settle. (A divorce is a messy thing.)

No matter. She said herself that they needed to be mature about this.

Czechia walks over to the bar and orders herself a beer. The stool she picks is a few seats away from Slovakia. Although she has yet to face him, she knows he's looking.

Her beer tastes more bitter than it should. Dim light illuminates the amber liquid as it sloshes in her glass. She tilts her face and glances up with one eye. Slovakia’s tense expression eases into a tentative smile. Her breath catches in her throat.

“You look well,” Czechia tells him earnestly.

Slovakia laughs, a sound she used to be so accustomed to. His brown eyes are warm when he refutes her with, “My economy’s shit.”

Frankly, the divorce _has_ negatively impacted both their economies, him more so than her. But that's not what she sees in him.

“I said _you_ look well.”

He holds himself taller, his spine straighter with a sense of pride and purpose. He lost the faint air of awkwardness. The lines of his silhouette are sharper, more defined. He knows exactly who he is, and his people believe in him.

So, she didn't tell him the complete truth: he looks _better_.

“...thank you,” his half-grin speaks of surprise. He looks down at his beer with a private smile she can't quite decipher before taking a hearty swig.

Looking at his profile, a surge of emotion rises in her throat and spills over her mouth, “We should never have split.”

The words come out petulant and bitter and immature, even a little desperate.

“Don't say that,” Slovakia shuts his eyes.

“It's true,” she says with a hard edge to her tone. She shouldn't have said that, but it's too late to take back her words so she will stand by them. The truth is: she misses him. Czechia takes a deep breath and continues, “Janko, neither of us wanted it.”

How had the divorce come to be? Václav Klaus and Vladimír Mečiar had decided their fates without consulting them, their people. August 26th, 1992. She felt the separation the moment the document was signed. They both did. Like a sharp knife, a hidden blade— neither of them saw it coming.

“No, Libuška, not really.” The way he smiles makes her angry all over again, each breath aching with nostalgia and injustice. “But we _were_ fighting a lot,” he reminds her.

She doesn't say anything to that. He isn't wrong. Both of them had their tensions— she felt that he was taking advantage of the economic resources she poured into his region, he thought they had too much of a power imbalance in their marriage.

Quietly, he confesses, “...part of me wanted it, too. The divorce.”

She freezes slightly, faced with the unspoken resolve and defiance she had always been a little blind to. An epiphany blooms in her chest, bittersweet through it all.

“I...understand.”

“Do you?” There’s a guarded yet challenging glint in his dark eyes. He's looking at her fully now, no hiding.

“Yes, really,” Czechia insists, a small pang of hurt mixed with indignity.

She is not so stupid as not to see how he, as a national personification, benefits more from being a separate state. That isn’t something she begrudges him for. Well, she _is_ , perhaps, a little bit peeved from the loss of power and the impact on her economy. However, she is willing to believe this is the best outcome for both of them. She has to.

She stares at the bottom of her glass.

“So, what are you doing for New Year's Eve?” She looks up, slightly taken back by his light, glossy conversational tone.

“I’m not sure yet,” she answers carefully, “but I think I’ll spend it alone.” The smile on her face is tight, a little sardonic. She spent last New Year’s Eve alone. She expects that is going to be her tradition from now on.

“I'll be spending it alone too,” Slovakia says inconspicuously. “At the _chata_.”

She stills, briefly, and continues to pour herself more beer. “Oh really?”

Her heartbeats sound like knocks on a heavy wooden door closed shut, warmth that is asking for permission to enter.

“I’m in the mood for a quiet New Year's Eve,” he explains cheerfully. She's almost afraid to look, but she can hear the grin in his voice. It gives her an idea of what he's really saying.

“That sounds...nice,” Czechia stops trying to conceal the smile surfacing to her lips, her eyes on the glistening rim of her half-full glass.

“I might bring a few extra beers,” Slovakia continues with an artificial nonchalance. His words are pointed, prompting. “You know, just in case.”

Her resolve to look dignified wavers with a stray giggle. “Mhm,” she keeps her eyes trained on the glass engraving. She feels an oozing warmth and a bubbly light, the feeling of seeing the first snow of the year.

“After all, they say that Slovak beer is the best,” he provokes. Successfully.

She looks up, scoffing with a playfulness she hasn't really shown in years, “Please, you _know_ that mine are better.”

They laugh. Somehow, it feels more okay now, that they're not together.

He raises a toast to their health, the words near indiscernible from her own language. Her glass meets his halfway in a clean, crisp _clink_.

 

This— She can live with this.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> “smířit se” is Czech for “to reconcile; to come to terms.”
> 
> Czechoslovakia split into Czech Republic and Slovakia on January 1, 1993.
> 
> The split was not a democratic decision. Instead, it was a decision made by the Czech prime minister Václav Klaus and Slovak prime minister Vladimír Mečiar alone on August 26, 1992 in the modernist Villa Tugendhat in Brno. Both of them had won similar electoral successes— roughly a third. However, they had very different visions of the future for Czechoslovakia and decided it was impossible for them to govern together, therefore they would dissolve the country.
> 
> The split was against the wishes of the people. 2.5 million Czechoslovaks signed a petition demanding a referendum, but it was ignored by Klaus and Mečiar. In fact, the majority of Czech and Slovak people got along well.  Public opinion polls—even after the dissolution was decided—showed that the majority of Czechoslovaks preferred the country to remain as one.
> 
> However, there were both negative sentiments on both sides about the other nation. Some Slovaks resented what they saw as “a distant, arrogant federal Government in Prague,” and that resentment was fanned by Mečiar to gain power, according to a New York Times article written on January 1, 1993.
> 
> Meanwhile, there was an element of “Czech selfishness” in the dissolution, according to the former Czech prime minister Petr Pithart, which translated into using the term “money pipeline” for Czech’s relations with Slovakia and Klaus’ willingness to dispense the poorer Slovak region.
> 
> Despite optimistic hopes for economic growth following the dissolution of Czechoslovakia, it actually negatively impacted both their economies, though not as much as expected.
> 
> "chata" means chalet, a mountain hut, or essentially a holiday home. It's a personal headcanon that they own one in the mountains on their border.
> 
> Janko is my headcanon human name for Slovakia; while it's the diminutive form of Jan in Czech, it's a legitimate name in Slovak. Libuška is the diminutive of Libuše, which is my headcanon human name for Czech, and it's a form that's more used by people she is close to. Anyways, credit goes to Toma for these names.


End file.
